Floppy Disks

Student Lounge College Life
1

<p>At my school, profs are still encouraging people to turn their stuff into them on floppy disks. I was wondering if anyone else has ever had a prof in the last year who has said this, because I think floppies are obsolete.</p>

<p>Most laptops don't include the drives built in, and finding them as an external option is becoming rare as well. Even desktop models are shipping without them--Apple hasn't sold a floppy drive equipped Mac since 1999 and other companies have rolled thousands of floppy-free machines off their lines in the past few years as well.</p>

<p>Does anyone out there even use floppies anymore, especially with USB memory sticks getting cheap and good?</p>

2

<p>Nope, not really.</p>

3

<p>I still use them!!! But then again I'm not the best with technology!</p>

<p>I wish I lived in the seventeenth century!!! Seriously!</p>

4

<p>Uh, what the ****? There's NO reason anyone should be asking you to do anything with those.</p>

5

<p>I have a little box of floppy disks sitting upon my computer as I type this. And, I still burn CD's onto CD-R's and play them upon a CD Player which also contains a radio and tape deck. </p>

<p>What should Grandma Merlin use instead of floppy disks? </p>

<p>MacTech92, why are your profs asking for work to be turned in on a floppy? I mean, they could use turnitin.com if they are adverse to paper.</p>

6

<p>I've had profs that asked people to turn stuff in via email, cd, or floppy.. but usually floppy hasn't been the desired media, cd is far more common. I have used floppy in the past year because some of the instruments in the chem dept are so old the computers don't have usb or cd-rom drives, only floppy - so to get your data off, you need a floppy - but that's the only use I've found for them.</p>

7

<p>Your prof isn't very up-to-date with technology...</p>

8

<p>I would say that he is living in the old days but I don't have a cell phone or I pod so I am in the same boat</p>

9

<p>You don't have a cell? 0.0</p>

10

<p>Sad. I know</p>

11

<p>Pearlinthemist </p>

<p>What kind of CD does one use to record data? And what kind of drive does one need have to record data from a CD? </p>

<p>Tell Grandma Merlin nicely and she will give you a candy:)</p>

<p>I do not have a cell either. People ask me why I do not have a cell and I tell them that I have an answering machine at home, so why bother?</p>

12

<p>That's pretty sad. A 1 gig USB stick can be had for <$20...</p>

13

<p>A CD-R. You could copy the files you want to on the cd and just burn it on the cd. I don't know what you mean by the other question.</p>

<p>Your best option is to get a USB drive, there are some super cheap ones available now like Scopr mentioned. It works like any drive on your computer except you can carry it around in your pocket.</p>

14

<p>It's all about USB flash thumb drives now. Tell your prof to get with the times.</p>

15

<p>your professor is too old. inscribe your essay on a piece of papayrus and turn it in, maybe then he'll get the message.</p>

16

<p>Enn I had no idea that one could burn a MS WORD document or something on a CD-R! I went to the Electronics store the other day and saw all these DVD-R thingies or something and I tripped out a smidgen. So, you Enn can have some of my homemade Chocolate Mint Candy. </p>

<p>I am still wondering, my being Grandma Merlin non-withstanding, why a Professor would want your History Paper or something on a floppy disk?! </p>

<p>Did you ask mactech92?</p>

17

<p>The profs in question were all easily 40+, but I would think anyone who can use e-mail (which is every prof on campus) would be able to accept it that way.</p>

<p>I used CD-R in high school to turn stuff in when everyone else had a floppy. It was really nice for PowerPoints because I like to use unique backgrounds that often don't fit on floppies and I also regularly use movies in my presentations--try fitting that on a 1.4MB disk.</p>

<p>And as for lack of cell phones, I have a phone and use it but I refuse to text message. What is so hard about leaving a voicemail or actually talking to someone? AIM is one thing, it was designed to be a text-based service, but phones are meant for TALKING...</p>

18

<p>Oh, and Merlin--the prof probably wanted it there because they were more comfortable/familiar with floppies or else are still under the assumption that they are the #1 portable storage mechanism (which they haven't been for years).</p>

<p>Also, don't waste a DVD-R on a 60K Word document. Use the less expensive and less capacity CD-R. You can burn anything to a CD-R (or DVD-R), Word documents included.</p>

19

<p>i used to hand my homework in on a cd, even if they required floppy disk. my laptop and my pc do NOT have a floppy disk drive, and none of the computers in the lab had a floppy disk drive either. I have no clue why the prof stated he required floppy disks because everyone used cd's anyway. I had to laugh the one time, this one kid decided to put his web project on floppy and handed it in with 10 disks... so you couldn't even view it because the files were dispersed amongst them.. I think after that is when he realized his floppy disk rule was obsolete.</p>

20

<p>you want dark ages, one class I had to turn in a (pretty long) assembly language program I had written...on paper. It was pages and pages long and an enormous waste, IMHO. Ridiculous, really.</p>

<p>Other than that, most classes have turn in schemes that make sense. There are several electronic submittion options available to profs here and whichever is most appropriate is used. I've never turned stuff in on CD, let alone floppy.</p>